Denmark, Greenland leaders stand united against Trump
Nuuk (Greenland) (AP): The leaders of Denmark and the country's territory of Greenland have offered a united front against President Donald Trump's calls for the United States to take over the strategic Arctic island on the eve of critical meetings in Washington on the matter.
In perhaps their sharpest pushback to date, Denmark and Greenland's prime ministers on Tuesday underscored that the territory is part of Denmark, and thus covered by the umbrella of the NATO military alliance.
A US attempt to take over or force the secession of the massive island would tear apart the transatlantic alliance, which has been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
The leaders, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, sought to underscore their solidarity as their foreign ministers, Denmark's Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland's Vivian Motzfeldt, prepared for talks at the White House on Wednesday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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“Dear Greenlanders, you should know that we stand together today, we will do so tomorrow, and we will continue to do so," Frederiksen said during a joint press conference in Copenhagen.
“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU," Nielsen added.
Tensions have grown this month as Trump has ramped up calls for a U.S. takeover of the island. He has repeatedly said he's considering a range of options, including military force, to acquire Greenland.
Trump earlier this week reiterated his argument that the U.S. needs to “take Greenland,” otherwise Russia or China would. He also says he'd rather “make a deal” for the territory, “but one way or the other, we're going to have Greenland.”
Danish officials have made clear they are open to expanding cooperation with the US military in Greenland, but have repeatedly stated the territory is not for sale.
Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island to just the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with roughly 200 soldiers today.
The base supports missile warning, missile defence and space surveillance operations for the US and NATO.
Denmark's parliament approved a bill last June to allow US military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where US troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.
Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland's minister for business and mineral resources, said it's “unfathomable” that the United States is discussing taking over a NATO ally and urged the Trump administration to listen to voices from the Arctic island's people.
Nathanielsen added that people in Greenland are “very, very worried” over the US administration's desire for control of Greenland.
“People are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can't really understand it,” Nathanielsen said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain's Parliament.
Meanwhile, Danish officials have also sought to underscore that Denmark has remained a faithful ally of the United States.
A Danish government official confirmed on Tuesday that Denmark provided US forces in the east Atlantic with support last week as they intercepted an oil tanker for alleged violations of US sanctions.
The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to provide details about what the support entailed.
The US interception in the Atlantic capped a weeks-long pursuit of the tanker that began in the Caribbean Sea as the US imposed a blockade in the waters of Venezuela aimed at capturing sanctioned vessels coming in and out of the South American country.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Danish support for the US operation was first reported by Newsmax.
Separately, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte refused to be drawn into the dispute, insisting that it was not his role to get involved.
“I never, ever comment when there are discussions within the alliance,” Rutte said, at the European Parliament in Brussels. “My role has to be to make sure we solve issues.”
He said that the 32-nation military alliance must focus on providing security in the Arctic region, which includes Greenland. “When it comes to the protection of the High North, that is my role.”
Nathanielsen said Greenlanders understand the need for increased monitoring in the Arctic amid growing geopolitical insecurity. But she said “it is just unfathomable to understand” that Greenland could be facing the prospect of being sold or annexed.
A bipartisan US congressional delegation is headed to Copenhagen for meetings on Friday and Saturday in an attempt to show unity between the United States and Denmark.
Nathanielsen said she thinks the people of Greenland should have a say in their own future.
“My deepest dream or hope is that the people of Greenland will get a say no matter what," she said. "For others this might be a piece of land, but for us it's home.”
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Trump loyalist Pam Bondi out as attorney general
Washington (AP): US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department's culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president's perceived enemies.
The departure followed months of scrutiny over the Justice Department's handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation and failed efforts to meet Trump's unwavering demands for criminal cases against his adversaries. As Trump's own frustrations mounted, he began privately discussing firing Bondi, people familiar with the matter say.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said in a statement. He added, “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future.”
Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of his former personal lawyers, as the acting attorney general. Three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
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In her own statement, Bondi called the job “the honor of a lifetime” and said she would be working over the next month to transition the position to Blanche.
Bondi came into office 14 months ago pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department. But she quickly set out to do Trump's bidding, heaping lavish praise at congressional hearings and White House events, firing prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to the president and opening investigations into his political foes. The intense turmoil contributed to the resignations of hundreds of employees, with the norm-breaking actions stirring concern that he department was being wielded as a tool to advance Trump's personal and political interests.
“Pam Bondi oversaw an unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department that brought our nation's rule of law to its knees,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat.
Bondi rejected accusations that she politicised the Justice Department and said her mission was to restore the institution's credibility after overreach by President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, which included two federal criminal cases against Trump. Bondi's defenders have said she worked to refocus the department to better tackle illegal immigration and violent crime and brought much-needed change to an agency they believe unfairly targeted conservatives.
Embracing, supporting and protecting the president
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Bondi's public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an arm's-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions. Bondi postured herself as Trump's chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
She called for an end to the “weaponisation” of law enforcement she said occurred under the Biden administration, even though Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who produced two cases against Trump, have said they followed the facts, the evidence and the law in their decision-making. Bondi's critics, meanwhile, said she was the one who had politicised the agency to do the president's bidding.
“You've turned the People's Department of Justice into Trump's instrument of revenge,” Rep Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary committee, said at a February hearing.
Bondi delivered a combative performance but few substantive answers at that hearing as she angrily insulted her Democratic questioners with name-calling, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market — “The Dow is up over 50,000 right now” —- and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.
Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a closed-door interview about the Epstein files.
Under Bondi's leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were short-lived as they were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed.
Trump repeatedly praised and defended Bondi publicly but also showed flashes of impatience with his attorney general's efforts to meet his demands to prosecute his rivals. In one extraordinary social media post last year, Trump called on Bondi to move quickly to prosecute his foes, including James and Comey, telling her, “We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility.”
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Bondi oversaw the exodus of thousands of career employees — both through firings and voluntary departures — including lawyers who prosecuted violent attacks on police at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; environmental, civil rights and ethics enforcers; counterterrorism prosecutors; and others.
Fumbling the Epstein files
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She struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case, which has long fascinated conspiracy theorists. She herself had fed the conspiracy theory machine with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel interview that Epstein's “client list” was sitting on her desk for review. The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.
Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House, only for it to be later revealed that the documents included no new revelations. And despite promises that more files were going to become public, the Justice Department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to pass a bill to force the agency to do so.
The Epstein files fumbles led to a stunning public criticism from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bondi's, who told Vanity Fair that the attorney general “completely whiffed.” The Justice Department's release of millions of pages of Epstein files did little to tamp down criticism, prompting a House committee with the support of five Republicans to subpoena Bondi to answer questions under oath.
Bondi, who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, was his second choice to lead the Justice Department, picked for the role after former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
